‘Sensitive files’ stolen as Saudi motorcade is ambushed in Paris

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A 12-vehicle entourage transporting a Saudi royal to a Paris airport was ambushed on Monday in cinematic fashion by heavily armed men, who stole a suitcase full of cash and diplomatic files described as “sensitive”. French police are trying to determine whether the ambush, which occurred on Monday evening just north of downtown Paris, was aimed at the money or the documents, which French newspaper Le Parisiendescribed as “sensitive”. According to French police, the Saudi motorcade was heading from the renowned Four Seasons George V hotel on the Champs Elysées to Le Bourget airport, 15 miles north of Paris, which handles private jets. But as the convoy drove through Porte de la Chapelle, two BMWs without license tags suddenly made their way to the top of the motorcade and forced it to stop. Within seconds, eight heavily armed men brandishing handguns and AK-47s stormed out of the two cars and hijacked a Mercedes minivan that was part of the motorcade. Several of them boarded the vehicle and drove away, taking with them its three occupants, a driver, a bodyguard and another official. Later on, the three hostages were abandoned by the side of the road. The minivan, as well as one of the two BMWs used by the armed assailants, were later found burnt out in the village of Saint-Mesmes, northeast of the French capital. But the thieves took with them a suitcase containing €250,000 ($330,000) in cash, as well as what the French press said were “important diplomatic documents”. One French police detective told journalists that the operation was “clearly an ambush by a commando group that was well-informed” about the movements of their target and “quite expert […] and aware of what they would find by attacking this one vehicle [the Mercedes minivan] and not the others”. Another police detective said the nature of the incident would change drastically into “something more complicated” if it were determined that the gunmen were going after the documents, and not the cash in the minivan. Police sources have not revealed the identity of the Saudi royal involved in the incident. But the Four Seasons George V hotel, from which the Saudi convoy departed, is owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a nephew of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and a grandson of Ibn Saud, the Kingdom’s first monarch. Last year, Forbes magazine listed al-Waeed as the world’s 26th richest individual with an estimated personal fortune of nearly $30 billion. In 2008, Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The Saudi embassy in Paris has refused to say whether al-Waeed was in the convoy when it was ambushed.